But now she has fallen foul of the residents of Gulbarg Society whose cause she vociferously espoused. Setalvad has been publicly accused of the same crime that Best Bakery survivor Zahira Sheikh once accused her of â€” collecting money in the name of the riot victims and failing (or refusing) to distribute (or even share) it. She overcame the dispute with Zahira by demonising the young girl, but now residents of Gulbarg Society have sent her a notice demanding that she distribute the funds she collected among the riot victims. Relations have soured to the point that Setalvad failed to attend the memorial service for victims this year.

The residents (all Muslims) are demanding that the money â€œcollected over the dead bodies of those who died in this societyâ€ must be divided among the riot victims as it â€œhas been taken in our nameâ€. Claiming that the residents were unaware that a trust had been formed for making the collections, they said that what the human rights activist had done â€œamounts to cheatingâ€.

The dispute goes back to 2006 when Setalvad proposed to purchase the 5,200-square-metre Gulbarg Society land from the residents to set up a museum. The deal failed to materialise, but Setalvadâ€™s Trust collected donations, which the residents say must be distributed among riot victims.

This is not Teflon Teestaâ€™s first brush with controversy. Former aide Rais Khan Pathan accused her of tampering with witness affidavits when at least six women of Naroda Gam denied before the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team in 2008 that they were raped during the riots. The witnesses said they did not know this was being said in the affidavits as the documents were in English, a language they were not familiar with.

More recently, in January 2013, Rais Khan accused Setalvadâ€™s NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace, of violating the provisions of the Foreign Contributions Regulations Act regarding receipts of funds from abroad. He demanded cancellation of CJPâ€™s FCRA registration and initiation of criminal proceedings against its trustees.

Pathan averred that CJPâ€™s FCRA permission was under the economic and education categories, but the NGO had no such activities. Infact, CJP, as per its constitution is a non-political, registered social organisation established to promote communal harmony, make legal interventions to prosecute those guilty of killing innocent citizens and assist others petitioning before the courts for redressal of grievances.

Setalvadâ€™s worst victim by far is young Zahira Sheikh who, like Rehmatnagar tailor Qutbuddin Ansari, was projected as the female face of the Gujarat riots, and exploited to the hilt to demonise Chief Minister Narendra Modi, while building the profiles and careers to his tormentors.

Now, as voices against Setalvadâ€™s functioning get louder, it may be in order to mention some facts. Zahira Sheikh lost several family members in the attack on the Best Bakery, owned by them. Zahiraâ€™s testimony in the Vadodara fast-track court in June 2003 led to the acquittal of 21 accused persons. But in July 2003, she was airlifted to Mumbai where she was warmly received by Javed Akhtar; here she claimed she had testified out of fear.

Setalvad then whipped up great frenzy, drawing the National Human Rights Commission into the fray. The NHRC asked the Supreme Court to transfer the riot cases out of Gujarat. The Supreme Court duly obliged by sending the Zahira Sheikh and Bilkis Bano cases to Mumbai and directing the Gujarat Government to re-examine all other cases.

Then, in 2005, Zahira Sheikh accused Teesta Setalvad of physically controlling her from July 6, 2003 to November 3, 2004 and tutoring her to give a certain type of testimony in court. She said the affidavit submitted to the NHRC in the name of Zahira Sheikh by Setalvad (600-odd pages of documentation) was unsigned! They were, Zahira sneered, mere pamphlets.

In other words, the NHRC and the Supreme Court had acted without scrutinizing the documents â€“ that is, without legal basis. Unfortunately, Zahira was denied the right to cross-examine the then NHRC chairperson AS Anand when she said that an oral testimony given to the chairman and two members of the Commission differed from the record NHRC presented to the Supreme Court. This was a serious allegation, but it was brushed aside by the Apex Court which continued to give a free run to Setalvad.

Zahira Sheikh was the first to demand a probe into Teesta Setalvadâ€™s post-Gujarat assets. Instead, the Apex Court appointed a probe committee headed by Registrar General BM Gupta and punished the feisty victim for perjury, startling even senior jurists. The Court also ignored reports beginning to emerge in the media about witnesses claiming to have received money for giving testimony in the post-Godhra trial cases.

As if this were not enough, in December 2005 Teesta Setalvad illegally exhumed bodies of Gujarat riot victims from graves near Pandarwada. When the State Government initiated action against her on grounds of fabricating false evidence, tampering with evidence, criminal conspiracy and outraging religious feelings, the apex court stayed criminal proceedings against her and called it a mala fide case and a â€œspuriousâ€ case to victimise Setalvad.

Teesta Setalvad has been richly rewarded for her activism with a plethora of national and international awards, including the Nuremberg Human Rights Award 2003, Parliamentarians for Global Action â€˜Defender of Democracyâ€™ Award, jointly with Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand 2004; M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award from the Vigil India Movement 2004, Nani A Palkhivala Award 2006, and Padma Shri 2007.

But now her aura of greatness is beginning to falter. With her, the National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court cannot evade public scrutiny of their actions and attitudes in the Gujarat riots cases. The young orphan, Zahira Sheikh, was made to suffer terrible victimization, and has since vanished into oblivion; she deserves a public apology and decent compensation.

It is also imperative that the accounts of Setalvad, and indeed all NGOs associated with the Gujarat riots, are audited to see how much money they collected and what relief was actually distributed to the victims.

This b***h must be tried in a sharia law court for playing with a young girl's life. Now that this is beginning to get clear that all the cases against NaMo, filled by this teesta are false, the public must understand that the congress has been playing a game by false cases and cheating and misusing powers of the state....

Muslims must now understand who is communal and are playing with faith and provoking them for the benefit of congress's political gains...........

BJP is not communal as they do not act until and unless the HINDUS are repeatedly provoked.......

Kanchan Gupta, from the Pioneer, media adviser to the government during Vajpayee era. From a being a centre-right news source it has devolved into a NaMo fanboy club. That being said, there are a few of contributors on Niti Central that are good (Tavleen Singh, Shashi Shekhar and Kanchan Gupta). It's a reasonably OK news source as long as you can see though their agenda.

Kanchan Gupta, from the Pioneer, media adviser to the government during Vajpayee era. From a being a centre-right news source it has devolved into a NaMo fanboy club. That being said, there are a few of contributors on Niti Central that are good (Tavleen Singh, Shashi Shekhar and Kanchan Gupta). It's a reasonably OK news source as long as you can see though their agenda.

Tavleen Singh is not on any side as far as I know or reading her articles give such an impression.

In fact, if I am not mistaken she has not been 'kind' to Modi.

Actually, Indian politics has left be very tired!

They are all devious and the Nation is suffering.

The Congress is the worst offender since they talk from both ends of their mouth, leaving all confused.

The fact that corruption scams after scams are happening and the Govt sitting impotent, with Sibals, Sanghvis. and Sanjay Jhas and Tiwaris squeaking pathetically blatant lies, downgrading the integrity of Constitution authorities does not encourage confidence, nor does the regular rap on the knuckles of the Govt by the Supreme Court.

And then RAhul Gandhi, the last word in everything, declaring the his Mother (Head of the Core Group) and that hapless PM (who is always left holding the can) are twits, take the cake!

NitiCentral is an online portal of avowed Modi fans, supporters with varying allegiance to RSS-BJP.

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Like Kafila is avowed Modi detractor. Like NDTV, Aajtak, IE, HT etc etc are avowed anti modi. Like Tehelka is pacca anti Modi, forgetting even knowing that March 1, is day after Feb 28, not after 3 days.

MUMBAI: A sessions court on Tuesday granted interim relief till February 1 to activist Teesta Setalvad who anticipated arrest in a case involving the fudging of affidavits relating to a victim of the 2002 Gujarat riots, allegedly by her former employee. The arrested accused, Rais Khan, who was a coordinator at the Citizens for Justice and Peace, had mentioned Setalvad in his statement to a magistrate in Gujarat.

Khan allegedly filed an affidavit stating that a riot victim was allegedly gang raped and stabbed by rioters at her late husband's house in Naroda Gam. However, the victim told the Special Investigation Team that she was never raped and had no clue about what was written in the affidavit, as it was in English.

gave his statement to a magistrate in Gujarat and had mentioned the activist's name.

Khan had allegedly filed an affidavit stating that a riot victim was allegedly gang raped and stabbed by rioters at her late husband's house in Naroda Gam. However the victim did a volte face and told the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that she was never raped and had no clue about what was written in that affidavit since it was in English and she had no knowledge of the language. On December 4, 2010, an additional sessions judge in Ahmedabad passed an order to book Khan and others accused of fabricating the evidence and preparing false affidavits.

According to the Gujarat police, the affidavit was allegedly drafted in English without the victim's knowledge by Khan who was a coordinator of the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), Setalvad's organisation.

Outside the court after the hearing Setalvad said that she approached the session's court seeking interim relief before she approached the High Court for anticipatory bail. "The victim in her testimony before the Nanavati- Shah Commission had deposed the same thing that was submitted to the SIT. For what reasons she changed her mind, is unknown," she said.

MUMBAI: Yasmeenbano Shaikh, one of the key witnesses in Gujarat's Best Bakery case , has moved the Bombay high court, alleging she was lured and misguided by social activist Teesta Setalvad to give false testimony against 17 accused, of whom a Mumbai special court has convicted nine to life imprisonment. A special court in Mazgaon conducted trial of Vadodara's Best Bakery massacre that took place in backdrop of 2002 Godhra riots. Yasmeen moved the HC early this week after no action was taken on her letter dated June 17, 2010 addressed to the Chief Justice of the Bombay high court.

Like Kafila is avowed Modi detractor. Like NDTV, Aajtak, IE, HT etc etc are avowed anti modi. Like Tehelka is pacca anti Modi, forgetting even knowing that March 1, is day after Feb 28, not after 3 days.

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You forgot to count The Pioneer, Jagran group and Bhaskar group, all just as pro BJP as the above sources are pro Congress. The circulation and impact of Bhaskar and Jagran alone will put any other news outlet to shame.